We bring four films to DOK Leipzig this year. On Tuesday, 27 October, we will showcase When I’m Scared I Make Things Up (Sasha Shegai), a project that took part in Ex Oriente Features in 2023, at DOK Preview International. For the DOK Film Market, we have selected three Central and Eastern European films: 80 Angry Journalists (András Földes, Anna Kis), Captain Mirea (Serban Georgescu) and My Family and Other Clowns (Heilika Pikkov, Liina Särkinen).
DOK Preview International
DOK Preview International takes place on Tuesday, 27 October, from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM at the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum, Grimmaische Str. 6, 04109 Leipzig. It is an onsite event held in English, admission is by invitation only, and the livestream is accessible to all accredited guests. The event is moderated by Céline Roustan and Seggen Mikael.
When I’m Scared I Make Things Up (dir. Sasha Shegai, prod. CatNip, Kazakhstan, 2026)
Vera 87, is a newbie at the nursing home. Waiting for her son to come get her, she joins a theatre club. As time passes, the hope for the escape fades. Only in reality. In the film, Vera plays out an ending of her own.
DOK Film Market
The DOK Film Market runs alongside the festival and is available online. It is open to accredited festival programmers and curators, buyers and commissioning editors, sales agents and distributors. Among the 80 films selected exclusively for the market and available from 8 October are titles recommended by the DOK Leipzig Selection Team, curated by partner organisations or presented by sales agents. The market library remains available to Film Market badge holders until 30 April 2027.
80 Angry Journalists (dir. András Földes, Anna Kis, prod. Lorand Balazs Imre – filmDOUGH, Hungary, Germany, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, 2026)
In July 2020, the editor-in-chief of Index.hu, Hungary’s largest independent news site is fired. The newsroom reads it as the last step in a slow takeover by interests close to the government. Within days, roughly eighty journalists walk out together. The film follows them from that decision into the uncertainty that comes after: no employer, no income, and no guarantee that a new outlet can survive in a media market shaped by political pressure. Out of that walkout, they build Telex.hu from scratch.
Shot inside the newsroom as events unfold, the film is a first-hand account of what it costs to keep independent journalism alive, told by the people who paid for it. By the time Orbán's government falls in April 2026, the press they founded has outlasted the power that tried to end it.
Captain Mirea (dir. Serban Georgescu, prod. Oana Muntean – Kolectiv Film, Romania, 2026)
In December 1989, Captain Costinel Mirea was shot during the Romanian Revolution and left paralysed for life. Thirty-five years later, while Romania still struggles to confront the unresolved violence of those days, he continues to search for the truth: who shot him, and why?
As the case remains buried in archives, Mirea begins recounting his story to Ioana, his 30-year-old daughter, born after the Revolution. Through their conversations, a dialogue unfolds between two generations separated by silence, inherited trauma, and competing narratives about Romania’s past. Determined to understand what really happened, Ioana retraces her father’s footsteps through the city, meets witnesses and survivors, and enters a labyrinth of memories, testimonies and contradictions.
Blending personal testimony, investigation and cinematic reconstruction, the film becomes both an intimate portrait of a wounded man and a reflection on how collective memory is shaped, erased and passed on. Gradually, another truth emerges: Ioana herself may be less a real daughter but the embodiment of a generation searching for a connection to a history it never experienced.
My Family and Other Clowns (dir. Heilika Pikkov, Liina Särkinen, prod. Ülo Pikkov – Silmviburlane, Estonia, 2025)
For 25 years, world-famous Estonian clowns Haide and Toomas, better known as Piip and Tuut, have brought joy and laughter to children and families across the globe. But behind the face paint and curtain lies a different story. While entertaining thousands, their own children – Emma, Siim, and Anni – have been growing up at home without them.
Their eldest daughter, Emma, dreams of following in her parents’ footsteps, but balancing her passion for theatre with caring for her autistic brother and younger sister has forced her to grow up fast. Meanwhile, Haide and Toomas grapple with guilt, exhaustion, and the toll of trying to give their all both on stage and at home.